Week #2!

Week #2:

This week was another amazing one! Our teaching was on the father heart of God. This is typically a tough week for some students because many of them didn’t have fathers who were there for thier children and this affects our view of who God, our heavenly Father is to us. We tend to see God, the Father as we see our earthly fathers and for many people this is a very distorted view of who God is. One exercise the teacher has our students do is tell the students to imagine that God is coming to thier house and is at their front door and then write down their immediate response to that scenario. Their responses to this question many times reveal how they feel about who God is. This week all of the students heard God’s true father heart for them, many heard for the first time that God is not this mean, angry God of the Old Testament, but a loving father who is portrayed through the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15).

One thing that I was reminded of in this week’s teaching is that God is a God of relationship and NOT formulas. Many of us have a tendency to limit God to formulas. For instance, someone tells us in order to hear from God we need to pray and fast for a couple days and we will hear from Him. However, we have a God who is not limited or forced into doing what we want Him to do for us. Our God is so big and many times we don’t understand His ways, because He cannot be confined to a formula. Isaiah 55: 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.” In a formula, love is missing. That is why He has called us to relationships and not a formula.

As for me, I am having a great time here. I know I am right where God has called me to be. Many of you have asked what my responsibilites are here, so here they are:
I have four girls that I do one-on-ones with (mentoring process once a week with each one), attend classes with all the students, help lead our outreach preparation times each week, responsible for us getting a vehicle whenever we need one (transportation in general), and generally leading the group along with the other 3 full-time staff and 2 part-time staff. We have an incredible group and I am enjoying learning along with them more about God!

Next week we will be doing our week on inner healing called the divine plumbline. This can be a very intense week for our students and staff as we walk alongside the students in this. Please keep us in prayer and our students that God will bring healing and freedom to all of them! I just want to keep hearing from the Lord and being used by Him so please pray for that as well. He is giving me supernatural strength and I am very greatful for that. I miss you all and love you! God bless!!!

It’s hard to believe I have been in Costa Rica now for 3 weeks. The DTS (Discipleship Training School which I am helping lead) just finished our first week of classes and it was pretty awesome! Our group of 15 students arrived last Thursday (July 8), Friday and Saturday. We have a diverse group of students from all over the U.S., Canada, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and New Zealand: 12 girls and 3 guys. We had a welcome party for the students on Saturday night in which we had typical Costa Rican food and some music for dancing. We finished out our first week of teaching by going to Jaco beach on Saturday as a group. We have a really great group of students in the DTS and I am so excited to see what God is going to do in their lives in this coming school and outreach! I have attached some pictures from this week for you to see what we have been doing (welcome dinner girls picture, our group did a drama for a kids ministry here in San Jose, and a beach picture of course!).

The first week of teaching was the topic Intimacy with God. This week of teaching is always so awesome for me. I love the fact that God calls us into intimacy with Him. This concept is so easily forgotten in the church. Many times we get caught up in the works or the needs of the community around us and forget that our God is calling us into an intimate personal relationship with Him. God did not create us out of the absence of something because He has no need of anything. He chooses to use us even though He could do it all Himself, to be co-laborers with Him.

One verse that struck me this week is John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they many know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” This word KNOW is meant not only to know intellectually, but to know perosnally, intimately we would know a friend or someone we love. So eternal life starts now, it is not only for eternity, but starts know as we get to know God and commit our lives to Him.

My first week being here was a bit difficult for me, but I know beyond a doubt that God has called me to be here and i am now enjoying it so much! I am learning a lot about being a leader, listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and leaning on Him for my strength.

For all of my prayer partners, a couple prayer petitions: first, please join our leadership team as we pray for where to go for outreach. We want to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and go to the place that He wants us to go. We have a place in mind and we need confirmation that this where we should go. Second, please pray for our students that they will let down their guards and let the Lord work in their lives. Third, please pray for me that i would lean on the Lord’s strength. It is a struggle to get good rest here so i am relying on Him to be my strength. I will leave you with a verse that keeps getting repeated here to me:

Isaiah 40:28-31 “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”